our bedroom makeover part 4: benedicts newborn nursery

funny story: i wasnt planning on having a newborn/transitional nursery at all. i had found the most perfect crib that would fit in our little "baby corner" just right AND last until benedict was big enough for a real bed so that there would be an absolute minimum of furniture buying/moving. it was a most expertly crafted plan and well, you know what they say about plans...

this perfect crib? apparently its like, the most popular hardest to get crib in the entire world. once we had the room ready/the money to finally order it (at approximately 36 weeks pregnant because i am really on top of things...), it was out of stock everywhere. it was so out of stock that most of the places that carry it (target, amazon, buy buy baby, the manufacturer, AND a variety of independent furniture stores) wouldnt even let me order one. but bed bath and beyond would. obviously i spent an entire morning crying and panicking about this, because 36 weeks pregnant. 

then miraculously bed bath and beyond let me order one. then a couple days later tragedy struck once again when they emailed me that the crib was, in fact, on backorder and would not be shipping until the end of august. which was about 6 weeks after my due date. so i had to figure out something else fast (actually, faster than fast because benedict decided he was coming quite a bit early). 

thankfully, this was our second baby and we knew all about how babies really dont need very much at the beginning. also, even though the bedding was 100% diy, i already had all the materials on hand and baby bedding is super fast and easy to make. also also, we conveniently still had the vintage bassinet that we used when alice was a baby. so really this whole crib situation was just overblown by my exceedingly pregnant emotions. 

since there wasnt a nursery in our room to begin with, i dont have a "before" picture, but i do have some (for some reason really oddly lit?) photos of benedicts little corner of our home:

 

now while the previous parts of our bedroom makeover have involved some rather large and expensive trips to ikea, benedicts nursery was practically free. and by that i mean, i spent about $16 on some striped fabric (which ive hardly put a dent in since i havent made the actual crib sheets yet) and the rest was pulled together from things we already had. and, i know im biased, but this is the cutest nursery that i have ever seen. 

heres where benedict sleeps: 

the bassinet is vintage, i bought it at an estate sale when i was pregnant with alice for the stupidly low price of $2 (just fyi, prescott, arizona is a VERY popular place for rich people to go to retire so the antiques/estate sales are AMAZING and SO cheap because nobody there wants old stuff). it was blue when i bought it but we had conveniently already painted it black for alices nursery. the blanket was made by chopping the least-raggedy portion from a gorgeous (but well-worn) chenille bedspread that i bought at jet rag dollar day when i was like 19 (that i had been stowing away for YEARS because it was too pretty to throw away but too damaged to use in its entirety) and sewing it into a miniature quilt. the sheets and nursing pillow i made with the aforementioned striped fabric that i got at the local salvage fabric store for $4 a yard (p.s. the nursing pillow pattern is from this book and i will have a tutorial for no-elastic bassinet sheets up here very soon!). 

and here is benedicts little changing area (which you already saw in the post about the dressers but i want to go over the details anyway): 

the pennant bunting was re-purposed from my baby shower decorations (should i post a tutorial for this one too?), and i covered a $2 changing pad from a local resale group on facebook in the same striped fabric i used for the sheets and nursing pillow (tutorial pending for this project as well). all of benedicts clothes and supplies are in the top two drawers of the dresser (except for diapers because for now we still have a mountain of diapers but i know that will soon be a thing of the past), but i put all the little tiny bits (pacifiers, nail clippers, nursing pads, etc) in a vintage card catalog drawer (from the same estate sale as the bassinet, i think it was also $2, maybe $5), and i accessorized with some prints that love but previously didnt have a home for (the two on the left are by leslie sam kim, and the TARDIS print is by nan lawson), and a sonogram of benedict because i found an empty frame and it was just the right size. 
even though decorating is hard for me AND we have to wait for the crib (im really dreading moving everything around AGAIN when it comes...), i really do love how everything came together, and how we were able to re-purpose so many things we already had to make an adorable nursery for benedict.  stay tuned for the final nursery update in a couple months!

our bedroom makeover part 3: the new dressers.

in case youre a new reader/missed it/forgot i was doing this series because its been so long since ive mentioned it: were in the middle of our first big home improvement project here at the meyers house: a complete bedroom makeover. if youd like to catch up, you can see our "before" pictures and read about our goals/plans in part one and check out our awesome new bed (which i am still absolutely in love with) in part two. but enough about that, its time to move on to part three: the new dressers. 
now, if you read the the post about the bed, you might remember how at the end of that project i was all "that was surprisingly easy! everything is going great! i love redecorating!". and well... that should have served as a warning for how things were going to start going once we got to the dressers. 
see, it was mid-late april when we finished up everything with the bed, and after giving ourselves (ok mostly just me) a little time to recover/get things put back together, we figured that we could get the dressers all done by the end of may (we knew they would take a bit longer since we had to sell/get rid of the old ones) and the nursery done at some point in june and everything would be all set long before it was time before baby arrives. ha. ha, ha, HA. 
heres how things actually happened: may turned out to be a crazy month with james working out of town, me having finals, james having school week, and then james working out of town some more (actually, into the first couple weeks of june), so i didnt have much help with the remaining de-cluttering we had left. which, of course, had gotten down to just jamess stuff so i couldnt do it by myself anyway. at the same time, we learned that it is surprisingly difficult to get rid of an old bedroom set. i tried for weeks to sell it as a set because that was easiest for me, but nobody wanted the whole set. so then i listed the pieces individually, and heres where things get weird: the totally trashed nightstand? that goes immediately for almost the entire asking price no problem. the dressers we eventually sold to a family who offered to take both at a slightly lower price. the mirror, the nicest, least dated, most practical piece of the whole set? crickets. (dont worry we did eventually find it a home). 
also, because things got delayed for so long, ikea apparently discontinued the dressers we had planned on buying. BUT (finally some good news here) we did pick an alternative we were happy with, AND by time the old dressers were out and we could go buy the new ones, they were on sale. 
getting everything set up and put back together ended up taking for. freaking. ever. (ok like a week) because of course james got sent out of town (then to a far-away job that made him come home really late) RIGHT when we got the new dressers home, but eventually we got everything taken care of, even if it was like, a whole month behind my original schedule. 
so how do things look now? pretty dang great if you ask me, heres the before: 

and heres the after: 

now, obviously everythings a lot tidier and more attractive and thats great and all, but heres the really mind-blowingly amazing part: EVERYTHING that was in those two huge dressers that took up the whole wall (plus all of the babys things) comfortable fit into the two dressers that take up just slightly more space than jamess dresser alone. well, actually, the footprint of the new dressers is only slightly wider than jamess old dresser, theyre actually shallower (but taller) and i have even more floor space for pattern making and fabric cutting.

one concern i did have about moving our dresser situation into something more compact was that we were going to lose a fair amount of surface area (especially considering that one of the dressers would also be babys changing table area), but that turned out to not be a problem at all since 1. the dressers were kind of just collecting clutter/messes that really belonged elsewhere, 2. my new nightstand has three drawers and actually gave a bunch of things an actual home, and 3. there was totally a bunch of junk up there that needed getting rid of (but since it was out of the way, we never bothered). 

anyway, i love the new arrangement. i love how clean and sleek and not hideous the new dressers are, how all our things take up WAY less space, and especially how i finally, for the first time ever in my entire life (that i can remember) have a little tiny part of my home that looks absolutely just the way i want it to: 

maybe this seems really silly and dramatic, but decorating doesnt come naturally to me, and over the years ive really struggled to find my personal style when it comes to homemaking, and trying to reconcile that with the fact that i hated most of the things we owned and we didnt have money to replace them made things really difficult. paralyzingly difficult. like, ive never actually felt at home anywhere weve lived up until now because so little of what we had was something i liked or chose, it was all just there. 
but now, i do know what i like: i like things mostly plain and neutral with some small personal touches. i like things to be functional and i do not like having every single available space occupied. i like empty wall space but i also like having a few special pieces of art on display. and i really, really like the way things are going in our home so far. 

our bedroom makeover part 2: the new bed.

so far our bedroom makeover is sailing right along. i mentioned earlier that we were starting with the new bed and mattress because that was our most pressing need, and im really glad we did. because not only do we now finally have a functional bed that doesnt have us waking up feeling like weve been hit by a bus, but the dramatic transformation has helped to further motivate our efforts in de-cluttering/making a nice, grown up house finally. 

also, i just have to stop here and pat myself on the back and say that the makeover has gone exceptionally well aesthetically, as well as financially. 

see, ive always shied away from even the most benign of home improvements because it usually goes something like this: i want to make this new super simple clothes rack for craft fairs but it turns out that the dowels required are actually $13 EACH and the cheapest drill that will drill through wood dowels is $100 and it doesnt come with drill bits, or i finally get some nice art for the living room and go to joanns for frames and WHY OH WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY IS THREE PICTURE FRAMES $60 AFTER SALES AND COUPONS?!?!?!?!. 

but this project has been basically the opposite. we originally wanted to get this bed and a mattress but we didnt know which one and also sheets and i was like "oh crap well hopefully we can get this all done for about $1000 but you know how things go with house projects so goodbye savings account". then we actually went to ikea and my favorite mattress was actually the very cheapest of all the foam mattresses. then after several weeks of none of the local ikeas getting THAT particular bed frame in stock we decided that rather than paying the extra $100 to order one online, wed just get this (nearly identical) bed frame which we thought would be $100 cheaper than our original choice. well, since the layout of our room makes only one side of the bed accessible for drawers and the drawers are actually sold separately, we were able to get the whole project, including splurging on a mattress pad and a spare set of sheets (after years and years of having a king sized bed and not being able to afford a spare set of sheets, this was a big deal, ok?) for $300 less than my original (low-end) estimate. 

so how are things turning out so far? well, heres the before: 

and heres the after: 

now, aside from the obvious NO MORE GROSS HIDEOUS VISIBLE BOX SPRINGS, theres also the not-obvious multiple empty shelves in the linen closet because we now have functional under the bed storage. also, theres now a totally decently sized area of empty floor available for things like exercising, sorting laundry, and cutting fabric. we still have some smaller things to deal with in this area of the room though, like wrangling the probably-dangerous extension cord/power strip situation caused by the old bed blocking the most accessible outlet (now made totally useable by the new bed), finding a new place for my full-length mirror (actually i have an idea for that), and doing something about our pillow situation (though really that should wait until were done with me being pregnant/having a new baby). 

but all in all, im definitely stoked on our progress so far, and i cant wait to get on to the next phase, new dressers!